3.3. Palaeo-Balkan

It is unclear whether Balkan languages formed at some point a genetic unity, or different Yamna communities just settled in neighbouring regions in the Balkans. Nevertheless, it seems common ground to speak about an ancestral Graeco-Armenian community, which split into Armenian and Graeco-Phrygian, which in turn split into Graeco-Macedonian and Phrygian.

Common features of Palaeo-Balkan languages include (Hajnal 2003):

· Vocalisation of word-initial laryngeals before consonants.

· Relatively systematic vocalisation of LPIE *-iħ as *-i̯ă (Albanian less clear, although cf. zonjë ‘lady’ from *desi̯ās-potni̯ă), in contrast with the more widespread *-ī alternative.

· Formation of identity adjectives and patronymics in *-eii̯o-.

· Spread of locative plural in *-si, in contrast with the alternative *-su.

· Relevance of sigmatic preterite(-aorist?) formations.

· Outcome of 3p.sg. in *-(e)s < *(e)st, and plural *-(e)san < *(e)s-n̥t (pointing to a loss of final consonant).

Interesting are the words of non-Indo-European (and thus probably substrate) origin found only in Graeco-Armenian, pointing to a common period in the Balkans, already separated from other Yamna settlers (Martirosyan 2013):